I didn't boycott Mozilla, I don't think that would have helped or sent the right message according to my own views. But I think people, especially the LGBT people affected by Prop. 8 and similar measures around the country, have a right to say that this kind of bigotry is not suitable for somebody leading an organization which strongly advocates for rights and equality.

Eich's donations were working at cross purposes with Mozilla Corp. regarding LGBT equality. It's hard to reconcile a group that advocates for equality and rights being led by somebody who succeeded (even temporarily) in taking some of those rights away. Even as he was working positively within Mozilla to build up and enact their LGBT-friendly internal policies, he was acting in the public sphere to take their legal protections and civil rights out from under them. It's fair to make that an issue when it comes to choosing the right person to head Mozilla and other advocacy-strong organizations.

Does anyone have any helpful resources for writing descriptions about androgynous characters? I am writing an androgynous character, but I haven't done that before.

No but I do draw androgynous characters. Is there a particular kind of androgyny you're going for? How you describe, say, Andrej Pejic is going to be different from how you describe Pat for instance. And it depends on who is describing the character too. Like if it's third person subjective, whoever the subjective character is.

I haven't written androgynous characters per se, but I have written pieces where I've tried to make the character as generic as possible or where their identity had to be kept as revealed as possible. I think it really just takes some practice. I've found the biggest issue is pronoun usage. Make friends with 'they'/'them'/'their' singular.

I haven't got a fully formed idea of what they look like just yet. I was just thinking that if we can say someone looks androgynous, that there might be common ways of describing how androgyny typically appears.
This is for narrative description in the third person.

I've been using singular they, and I'm not finding that very hard._________________::lesser crisis mode::

It's really difficult because language is so innately gendered. It kinda becomes easy to overdo description. Perhaps frame them as being a contrast of attributes, like having 'handsome eloquence' or something like that.

/whoops_________________"No, but evil is still being --Is having reason-- Being reasonable! Mousie understands? Is always being reason. Is punishing world for not being... Like in head. Is always reason. World should be different, is reason."
-Ed, from Digger

If you value your sanity, don't participate in the comments on any of this Eich news. I've been doing that since the story first broke, and it's incredible how many people think that people complaining about Eich's promotion to CEO is actually being a jack-booted thug using the Tools of Oppression the same way Eich did; that Eich didn't do anything to the LGBT people at Mozilla because his actions weren't taking place on company time or with the company dime; that Eich has been bullied by the big GLAAD McCarthyist meanies and his life is now ruined foreverz.

Pardon this interruption of your TruthRevolt experience. Mozilla recently forced its CEO, Brendan Eich, to resign over his personal support for traditional marriage. The firing followed a vicious smear campaign against Eich by dating website OKCupid, in which OKCupid blocked Mozilla users from visiting their website.

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This is pretty much why I think the boycott was a bad idea (also there's no way I'm going to stop using Firefox).

At the same time, acting like Eich never discriminated against Mozilla employees is wrong; that past discrimination (working to destroy their right to marriage) is why some of them left or spoke up in the first place. Acting like he is being oppressed for having like, his opinion, man! is neglecting to take into account his actions based on that opinion, actions that did harm Mozilla employees (as well as every other same-sex couple in the state).
Also, acting like Mozilla is simply another company a la Merrill-Lynch or Chevron is kind of fantastically missing the point of Mozilla. They are explicitly political and have organized protests for political issues (see: SOPA, mass spying, privacy, etc.). They have an agenda to protect and promote people's rights, including equality.
Even taking a list of companies where Joe Random Employee donated money is missing the point: Eich was appointed to the top leadership position where he's expected to represent the company to the outside world. If he's "privately" working to undermine their values at the same time, how is that not an appropriate thing to bring up regarding his appointment? His donations were known at least two years ago and he remained CTO without much ruckus, because he was not the CEO. Neither are the vast majority of people on those lists.

Frankly, professionally published commentary neglecting the salient points above and what I've already gone over is something I'd expect from angry threadjackers, not supposedly professional journalists and columnists who are ostensibly paid to produce insightful and illucidating content for consumption to make the issues clear. At this point it amounts to either inexcusable unfamiliarity or willful ignorance.
Non-pro tip to all you pros out there: If you're incapable of writing up something more facts-based, reality-oriented, and relevant than me, some anonymous loser with too much free time, you should really just be handing me your paycheck and column inches.

However, I have also not been involved with Mozilla in any way, nor do I use any of Mozilla's products. I'm an Opera user through-and-through._________________The Thirties dreamed white marble and slipstream chrome, immortal crystal and burnished bronze, but the rockets on the covers of the Gernsback pulps had fallen on London in the dead of night, screaming. - William Gibson, The Gernsback Continuum

The Mozilla debacle is one of those internet fights. There's no middleroad, you're either extreme one side or extreme other side and sometimes it seems like the only way to win is to go watch kitten pictures.

It's not one of the better ways this could have played out. I'd say what wound up happening is about the second worst.
The first worst is that he stayed at Mozilla, unrepentant, and its partners and contributors continued to peel away, leaving the company without the support and expertise it needs to compete. If Eich had continued to hold his line in the face of this legitimate civil rights issue, it probably would have destroyed Mozilla. Because supporting SSM-bans today is pretty much the equivalent of supporting racist anti-miscegenation laws back in the 20th century, and it's clear which way society is moving.

You do realize in its current iteration that Opera has essentially become a Chrome cone, right?

It's got nice built in IRC and Email clients, which, AFAIK Chrome does not. It has TurboMode, which speeds up browsing on crappy old computers, which is great for me when I'm working on refurbished stuff. It's also very stringent about web standards - it doesn't support very much of anything outside of the current standards. So if I'm testing a website, and it works in Opera, it's general safe to assume it will work in other browsers as well.

CINCINNATI, Ohio – A federal judge said this morning that he intends to issue a ruling in 10 days that will strike down Ohio’s ban on recognizing gay marriages obtained legally in other states.

U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Black informed lawyers of his intentions at a hearing, which set off a joyous celebration in the courtroom among four same-sex couples and their supporters, said attorney Al Gerhardstein.

“For same sex couples who have struggled to secure equal rights this is a great day,” Gerhardstein said shortly after the hearing ended.

Ohio has banned same-sex marriages, and failed to recognize same-sex marriages from other states, since a vote in 2004. Currently 17 states and the District of Columbia allow same-sex marriages, Gerhardstein said.

_________________The Thirties dreamed white marble and slipstream chrome, immortal crystal and burnished bronze, but the rockets on the covers of the Gernsback pulps had fallen on London in the dead of night, screaming. - William Gibson, The Gernsback Continuum

You do realize in its current iteration that Opera has essentially become a Chrome cone, right?

It's got nice built in IRC and Email clients, which, AFAIK Chrome does not. It has TurboMode, which speeds up browsing on crappy old computers, which is great for me when I'm working on refurbished stuff. It's also very stringent about web standards - it doesn't support very much of anything outside of the current standards. So if I'm testing a website, and it works in Opera, it's general safe to assume it will work in other browsers as well.

And, most importantly, it's not related to Google.

It wasn't:

Quote:

Michael Muchmore, writing in PC Magazine, commented in a review of Opera 20 shortly after its release that, on replacing its own Presto engine by Google's, Opera had become largely an interface built on top of Chrome, using Chrome's underlying code. Users who wanted the ingenious Opera features dropped in later versions could download version 12, still maintained.